The Art of Falling in Love Page 9

  I bite my lip. “You know Foster?”

  She studies the dinged metal edges of the shovel, her eyebrows pushed together. “I know of him.”

  “Are you friends? Do you go to school together?" I need to know why she's acting like Foster's some leprous creep instead of the guy who religiously recycles.

  She raises her eyebrows, her brown eyes wide. “Um, no, we’re not exactly friends. We don’t really run in the same circles at school. But I know of him. And he's always at the beach, so I see him around."

  Foster's at the beach more than anyone I know. And that's pretty impressive in a beach town like this one. But I've never seen him with any other guys from the high school. I've never seen him spending time with anyone, I guess.

  She shakes her head. “I just don’t really hang out with guys like Foster. I’m more straight-edge, you know?”

  She makes it sound like Foster is some intensely wild party boy, but I’ve never seen that side of him. If I had, I probably wouldn’t have a maybe-crush on him. My mind is swimming, but I force myself to focus on something else for a minute. I don’t want to lose out on the chance to pick Carolina’s brain about the competition.

  “What do you mean?”

  She shakes her head again. “I don’t want to start any drama. You should probably ask him yourself.”

  My face flushes. A mixture of nerves and anxiety washes over me and makes my skin itchy and hot. I inhale through the discomfort. He doesn’t talk about himself much, but still, the thought of Foster having a secret life is something I've never considered.

  “I will," I say. “And, I don’t know if this is okay to ask or not, but I’d love to see pictures of the art you’ve won with the past two years.” I’m dying to know what it is about her art that makes the judges love her. I've also never seen a finished sand sculpture other than the generic ones in the contest pamphlet.

  Carolina grins and pulls out her phone. I should have expected she’d have her winning shots ready to show off. I know I would if I had placed in any sort of art competition. I hover over her as she scrolls through albums of the past year’s contests. Her winner from last year takes my breath away. Chills crawls their way down my arms, creating a bumpy pattern across my skin.

  She smiles as she explains it to me. She points to the top structure. “This is New York city. The Statue of Liberty, the Flatiron Building, the 9/11 memorial site. I went there with my dad the summer I turned fourteen.”

  There’s a catch in her throat that makes her pause. I can’t look at her as tears form in the corners of my eyes. I avoid eye contact with Carolina as she tells me about the months after that trip, when her dad died. On her phone, she points to the bottom structure, sand twisted into a pattern that looks like it’s being swallowed up in a swirling and chaotic sand pit. Black pebbles line the inside circle, giving off the appearance of an endless hole in the center. She doesn't have to explain that her dreams are being destroyed by this monster of despair. It’s true art. And she made it all by herself, with just sand.

  "I know how you feel," I say. "I lost my grandfather at the beginning of the summer, and I'm..."

  I shrug my shoulder across my cheek, grazing the trail of tears that appear there. "I'm kind of lost, you know?"

  She looks up from her phone and nods. "Sorry about your grandfather. The lost feeling never goes away completely, but it gets better."

  I run a hand through my hair. People always say it will get better, but they never say how.

  "Art helps." She nods again.

  I inhale. "Thanks."

  My phone buzzes, but a hurried glance at the screen shows a message from Livvy, not Foster. I glance over Carolina's head, but he's still nowhere nearby. My mouth tugs downward in spite of myself.

  "Looking for your partner?" Carolina raises an eyebrow, her mouth forming a slanted smirk. It's as close as you can come to saying I told you so to a stranger without being a complete jerk about it.

  “He’s running late,” I concede.

  Carolina laughs drily. “He doesn’t even show up for school half the time. He’s not going to take this kind of thing seriously. Maybe you should find a more reliable teammate.”

  I shake my head. “Your impression of him is wrong. He must have a good reason for not being here."

  She shrugs, hands on her hips as she lets my shovel drop to the sand. “I guess I’ll have to take your word for it.”

  Eighteen

  "Where were you yesterday?"

  Foster meets me when I stop my car in the empty parking lot early the next morning. He’s bleary-eyed and groggy, not at all his usual happy-go-lucky self. He’s not even giving me laid-back surfer vibes—he’s just grumpy. I try to ignore his low groans and shrugs in response to my question and keep talking. When I get to the part about meeting Carolina, he cuts his eyes at me.

  “I thought she was coming over to try to scare me off or something, but we actually might be friends after this whole thing is over." I’m still talking just to annoy him at this point. I don’t know what his deal is, but his attitude is more annoying than his absence at the stakeout was. Carolina and I already exchanged phone numbers and texted some last night, which I really am excited about. I don’t have many friends, and she seems cool. Plus, she likes art, which is more than can be said for any of my friends back home.

  “She's definitely not interested in being your friend, especially not if she knows I’m helping you. Everyone at school thinks I’m some delinquent or something.” His tone is so matter-of-fact and full of sarcasm that I want to spit at him.

  “Don’t be a jerk. And why would they think that?” His insinuation that she’s not interested in me hurts worse than his gruff tone. I turn on my heel to leave, and he lets me go for a full three seconds. Just as I’m about to drag myself back to my car on principle, he calls after me.

  “Hey, wait. Sorry. I’m just exhausted, okay? I was up all night, so...”

  I slowly spin back to face him with my hands on my hips. I’m pretty exhausted myself. Dragging any sort of answer out of Foster is proving to be a tiring exercise.

  “You know—” I stop to catch my breath. I’m getting sweaty palms and red-faced, and neither of those things has anything to do with the hundred-degree weather. "It's fine if you don't want to tell me why you never showed up yesterday. You don't even have to explain why it was too hard to let me know you couldn't come. But you don't have to be rude."

  I wait for him to match my anger and yell back, but he just shrinks. He shakes his head and holds up a hand to shield his eyes while staring at a spot along the beach where the tide is exceptionally low.

  “Sorry,” he says so quietly that I have to lean forward to hear. “I didn't want to bother you. I don't really like talking about myself.”

  I bite my lip to stop laughter from tumbling out of me. That’s an understatement.

  “Well, why are you so tired? Where were you yesterday?” I promised myself I didn’t care whether he came or not, but now my resolve is quickly waning. I do care, and it takes more effort to pretend to be apathetic than it does to just feel. His mouth tightens, and lines appear across his face. If someone were spying on us right now, they'd think I asked him to give me a kidney.

  “I can't say."

  My mouth hangs open. All I’m asking for is a tiny bit of transparency—just a little information. And he still finds it impossible. Tears threaten the corners of my eyes, and my neck stings with heat.

  "You can't or you just don't want to?"

  He looks past me, over my head at the cloudless blue sky. Whatever he sees there must be better than giving me the truth because he still says nothing.

  "I thought..."

  I cross my arms in front of my chest, my hands clutching so tightly that the skin under my fingertips turns white. I close my eyes and summon phantom courage.

  "This weekend? Driving together and at the Little Art Park? I thought something happened. I thought that just maybe we could mean something
to each other, but now I see how stupid I am."

  He's staring at me, eyes wide. "You're not stupid."

  I place my palms in front of me and hold them facing outward. "Then tell me what's wrong, Foster. Just answer this one thing, and I'll leave it alone. I swear."

  His shoulders make the tiniest of concessions. "I just can't."

  I shake my head, and without saying anything else, I turn to go. The sound of him following behind me makes my chest ache.

  "Please. Wait." There's so much raw pain in the soft pleading of his voice it could make a sympathizer out of the devil himself.

  But I ignore him. I storm off the beach as fast as the slippery sand under my feet will carry me. Instead of going home, I fume in my parked car. But after a few minutes of seething anger at Foster and what he said to me and his refusal to talk, I’m done. Hot, wet tears drip down my cheeks before I even realize I'm crying. As quickly as I was able to work up a rage over him, now I’m ready to admit I’m more embarrassed than anything. After another minute of red-eyed sulking, I leave my car, standing straighter than before.

  I walk down the shoreline with my sandals in one hand and the other hand extended out for balance as I toe the waves. Foster's sitting on a bench near the pier. He doesn’t look as surprised to see me again as I expect. His hand raises in a rigid half-wave, but his mouth still sits grim and tight.

  “I came back because I need to talk to you about something I heard.” I position myself in front of the bench, and he stands to attention as soon as the words leave my mouth.

  Foster’s holding his face steady, but his eyes give him away. He narrows them like he’s scared of something. Scared of me? I hold my hands together in front of me like I learned in last year’s speech class. Our teacher told us that hands clasped in front of your body was a universal, professional stance that also hides your nerves. I don’t think anything is going to work to hide how nervous I am right now.

  "You're hiding something, and I want to know what it is. I'm not giving you a choice this time. Whatever else there is, we are friends, and friends talk about hard things."

  He takes a half-step backward.

  I shake my head as my heart pounds in my ears. "You can trust me, I promise." I suck in a breath. “I heard from Carolina that everyone at your school thinks you’re some crazy troublemaker…”

  Foster makes a sound like I’ve kicked him. He squints.

  "I don't understand why they think that. And I'm wondering if it has something to do with you missing the meeting and how we're fighting today." I exhale. "So, what's going on? Are you in trouble or something? Do you need help?" My voice cracks as I spit out the rest of my words.

  “It’s so complicated.”

  He wrinkles his nose at the quick breeze floating over us. It's so cool on my flushed skin that I want to pull him away from this awful conversation and drag him into the ocean, like the day in the rain at the pier. I'd even take the surfing lesson at this point if it means we can just move on.

  “It doesn’t have to be complicated.”

  He’s still not looking at me. A horrifying thought takes hold: I’ve completely misread everything, all of it, his hands on mine, the almost kiss at my car, how much the road trip meant to him. I’ve just demanded access to all his secrets, and now I’m preying on him when he’s already super vulnerable.

  Like a total creep.

  My gaze drops. “I mean it doesn’t have to be complicated because I want to help. You don't have to hold this in. Whatever it is.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he says. But his voice is distant.

  “Sorry—I just thought…” I trail off. What did I think? That I could just swoop in and fix whatever is going on here? That Foster, who has known me for all of half a summer, trusts me enough to spill his guts on the spot?

  “You thought what?” There’s something almost hopeful in the sharp way he says it. I force myself to meet his eyes. They’re not narrowed like I expect them to be. Instead they're his true blue, wide and wondering.

  I bite my lip. I can't bare my soul to him just to get shot down again. I shake my head. "I don't know anymore."

  Waves crash just a few yards from the bench where we sit. My legs are tucked under my body; I'm rolled tightly into myself like this day's so rough that even my body needs extra protection from the beating my heart is taking. I blink against the blurring skyline, faster and faster to block tears from pooling across my cheeks.

  Next to me, Foster inhales sharply. A shaky hand brushes against my leg as his fingers graze along mine, warm and soft. If I were to move my own hand another inch I could grab his, but I stay still.

  His voice is gritty and low. "My stepbrother showed up yesterday."

  I turn my head, eyebrows raised. "I didn't even know you had a brother."

  He sighs. “Last year my mom died of cancer. It was just me and her. I’m her only kid, and my dad has never been around. I don’t even know who he is. But she was married to this other guy for a few years, and his son—my stepbrother—still comes around sometimes.”

  "I wish you would have told me about your mom. I'm so sorry."

  I reach my hand forward and slide my fingers along his. My skin warms at his touch. My eyes move to where our hands are linked together, and a hiccup forms in my chest. Somehow the places where we've grasped fit together so well you'd think we were built for this.

  "It's hard for me to talk about her at all. But I should have told you sooner." Foster looks at our hands too. His lips form a tiny curve, and my heart thumps wildly against my chest.

  "So what did you do? After your mom, um, died?"

  It's impossible to even conjure up an image of what it must be like to be without a parent. It sucks that Opa's gone, but I still have Mom and Dad. I’ve always had someone to depend on. No matter how obnoxious my parents are, it’s impossible to even think about a world without them there when I need them. Foster squeezes my hand, just a barely-there pressure, and sighs.

  Even though I have no idea what he’s about to tell me, my heart sticks in my throat.

  “What happened?” I ask. My stomach turns in anticipation.

  “My stepbrother. He’s twelve years older than I am, and I hadn't seen him for a few years before my mom got sick, but she knew we talked sometimes. She wanted him to have custody of me. We’d never been close, even when I was little, so I thought it was a little weird that he wanted me to live with him. When he picked me up after the funeral, I realized he was only in it for the money. Apparently once he found out I’d be getting monthly payments, he convinced my mom to give him custody in her will. I also got ten thousand dollars, and as soon as he heard that, it was over.”

  I shake my head. “Over? What do you mean? Like, he stole your money?” Surely his own brother wouldn’t do that. The same brother that apparently paid him a visit yesterday and took him from impassable to distraught. Okay, in light of that, maybe he would.

  Foster groans and pushes sand around with the toe of his sandal. “Yes. He took all of it, drained the savings account my mom set up for me, and left.”

  My heart drops. I pretend not to notice the crack in his voice. If there’s ever a decent time to cry, it’s now. If he does start crying, what do I do? I’ve never seen someone I like get this emotional. He’s still holding onto my hand, squeezing it almost too tightly. Maybe letting him talk and squeeze the crap out of me is enough.

  “What do you mean, ‘he left’? You reported it to the police, right?” I just can’t picture Foster being related to some kind of supervillain capable of evading the police. No one makes off with ten thousand dollars and rides off into the sunset. Foster shrugs and looks past me. Oh boy. “You didn’t tell anyone?”

  His silence answers my question. I don’t know if I should be appalled at his brother, or at Foster for letting his crime go unanswered. But, of course, I’m angry at his brother. I don’t always get along well with Livvy, but she'd never do something this bad. If she did….

  I s
hake my head. “Your brother is the worst."

  Foster frowns. “He’s done some bad things, but he’s still my brother. I think he just wasn’t ready for the responsibility of taking care of me full time. Or any responsibility at all, I guess.”

  He runs his hands through his hair, tugging on the ends. "When he and his dad lived with us, I was just a little kid. We didn't have much in common back then either, but his dad—he was mean."

  The word 'mean' coming from Foster is such a little thing, but something tells me it's much more than that.

  "He hit us—not a lot, but it still happened. When he was mad, he'd just start punching. My mom worked a lot, so she didn't see, but when my brother and I were home, he'd go after us sometimes. Just start whaling on us, almost for fun it seemed like. But mostly his son. Because his son stood up to him and took it for me as much as he could, I think. And when mom found out, she divorced him and took me to a new apartment that night. My stepbrother kind of disappeared for a while, but he wasn't bad, not then."

  I close my eyes and suck in a breath. So much pain for one person to hold on to, and all before he's even considered an adult. "Regardless of that, what he did to you is so unfair."

  He grins and rolls his eyes. “Your world is so different from mine, Claire. I don’t get to worry about what’s fair or not. I’m too busy surviving.”

  It’s the truth, but it still stings. I’ve never seen myself as privileged or spoiled. Livvy definitely, but never me. “Well, what about the monthly payments from your mom? Isn’t it enough for you to rent an apartment or something?”

  Complete silence again. I’m beginning to hate these telling silences between us. Foster turns his head to watch my reaction. I try to stay calm for his sake. This is my worst nightmare: a terrible thing I can’t fix. There’s nothing I can think of that will make this better. Nothing I can do changes the fact that Foster has been left or betrayed by so many adults that were supposed to take care of him.